Mute Swarm
by Ani-kun
Summary: The story of a legend. Wounded in Wave, how will a mute Naruto recover? And how will his teammates reconcile this new side of Naruto? Mute!Naruto, Introspective!Naruto, no pairings at the moment
1. The Beginning

A/N: Wow, it's been a long time since I tried my hand at writing. Not impressed with how this turned out, but satisfied in a weird sense, so I guess I'm doing something right. Please read and review, because I really need some criticism at this point! Enjoy~!

**Chapter 1: The Beginning**

It was Wave, as these stories always are. Stories of glamor and glory, of pride and freedom, of happiness and joy. Stories of the oppressed being oppressed no longer, of celebrating a symbol of courage and freedom and being the absolute representation of Truth that one country can rely on. This is the story of a flame that burned brightly, but silently. independently, and, above all, with strength and compassion. This is the tale of Uzumaki Naruto as it could have been. This is the tale of the origin of the Mute Swarm of Konoha.

The tale begins with the death of Haku, the opposition. This tale begins with the blooding of Naruto's own hands, as he kills a friend with them. Once upon a time, Naruto wouldn't have been able to silence Haku's blue flames of life in time for the androgynous shinobi to react to his master's near death. This was not that time.

"Haku...I truly regret this. I shall treasure the memories we shared together forever." Down went the knife, clean and glinting in the suppressed sun; down went the eyes of Haku, fake hunter-nin and tool to the missing nin Zabuza, perpetually and without issue. The sound of birds chirping alerted the blond's attention, as he watched the immobile Zabuza be impaled by his teacher, Kakashi's, blue-encased hand. The death of Zabuza cleared his chakra-fueled mist faster than a gust of wind would have, and revealed a large force of men of various sizes wielding various weapons and looking, in a general, impartial sense, not very friendly.

Kakashi grimaced; Naruto stared, shocked; Sakura rushed to the inert body of Sasuke with a shriek; and Sasuke woke up.

'Just in time, huh? Gato's got a beautiful sense of timing,' thought Kakashi dryly. He covered his Sharingan eye and called to the only battle-ready member of his team left.

"Naruto. Make ten shadow clones and get ready for the fight of your life," Kakashi barked. His student stared at him, but complied.

Suddenly, a harsh, high-pitched laugh echoed from the other end of the bridge. "Ohohoho? What's this? Zabuza and his little pet were finished? Ah, what a shame. I was hoping Zabuza would have at least have taken out one of you! Oh well. This is of no matter to me."

Naruto and Kakashi braced themselves for combat; the mercenaries opposite them mirrored the action.

Gato stepped back. "Remember men, whoever gets the last kill gets the most cash! If you die, don't expect me to pay you!" With a flourish, he turned his back and began to walk away.

Kakashi palmed a kunai and it soared. There was a wet sound unique to metal piercing grey matter, and the fighting began.

Tearing, twisting, slashing, blocking, throwing. 'Sword! Aim for the knuckles, slit the throat. Axe, maneuver around and slit the throat. Bow, aim and fire.' Ten Naruto clones and one Naruto original gave themselves over to instinct as the enemies closed in, killing and disabling without regard to self nor enemy.

Weary enemies make more mistakes than angry ones. The mercenaries were angry at the loss of pay, yes, but Kakashi was three minutes away from chakra exhaustion and Naruto was just tired from a day of fighting. The mercenaries were unskilled by comparison, dying by the tens between the twelve ninja, but there came a point where luck and cunning came into play.

As the numbers diminished, one mercenary decided to play dead. As the numbers disappeared, and he was the only living one left, and Naruto dispelled his clones and Kakashi collapsed from exhaustion, and the villagers arrived to a bridge full of corpses, one rose. With the slash of a sword, Naruto's neck was slit. No reaction time was given for the downed ninja, but as the mercenary stared in shock; 'I just killed a ninja!', and the villagers stared in shock; 'He just killed a ninja!', a lone crossbow bolt and a cry of anger and despair rent the silence and killed the mercenary.

The villagers changed the focus of their stare to the wielder of said crossbow bolt; the son of the hero Kaiza, Inari.

The villagers burst into action then. The only doctor in Wave began running to try to aid Naruto; the villagers themselves began running to go mourn him; Inari ran to the bushes to vomit as the reality of his actions hit him; and, unnoticed amongst all the hustle and bustle of panic and despair, sat the other two members of Team 7.

Sakura sat, motionless. Sasuke sat, also motionless, but with a distinct spiral design in his eyes. Both sat, thinking of their limited use in this situation and bemoaning their uselessness.

Both sat, mourning the loss of a friend.

And, unbeknownst to all, red shifted, and in the darkness, it grinned.


	2. The Void

**Chapter 2: The Void**

Naruto was floating.

A sense of catharsis, of weightlessness, of burdens being lifted off his shoulders, of being able to merge with the wind and _fly, _of being able to experience passion and sweet, sweet freedom, washed over him. He opened his eyes. Light surrounding him and engulfing him, absorbing him yet still leaving him a sense of self. He looked down at himself.

The sense of catharsis lifted.

Claws, a red aura, and shackled feet met him as he looked down. Red entered his eyes, invading them as the scent and taste of blood filled his senses. Vaguely, he was aware of movement.

The light took on a reddish hue; wait, no. Red didn't even begin to describe it. It wasn't red, it was _scarlet, _angry, passionate, emotional. It was the color of the nine-tailed fox Kyuubi.

The red stopped invading the white and instead merged, seamlessly. White with a border of scarlet, and Naruto was sure he could sense black beyond even those two colors.

He dimly became aware of a sense of pain in his throat, arms, back, everywhere, everything, everything on fire fire fire fire _fire anger pain-_

And then, Naruto awoke.

The world came back to him in a flash, colors that weren't so blindingly bright and instead dull and muted. Hazy figures with tops of beige and bottoms of various colors. Two, off to the side; another beige figure, but with a distinct mop of pink? The crowd stirred restlessly. Movement? Coherence came back in a flash, and with it, proper eyesight.

What he saw then was something that would haunt him for years. Yes, he had been ignored and in some parts abused, but never was he beheld as a specter of death to be feared yet worshiped. Never had he seen such fear in the eyes of civilians, let alone the eyes of his teammates. He ached, in his heart, in his soul, and in his body. And so, having experienced such pain as he had never felt before, (_betrayal) _he collapsed. The world spun, and instead of light, all he saw was black, and the world faded.

~.~.~

Sasuke awoke to the screams of mercenaries being slaughtered. Altogether not a bad thing, merely disgusting and revolting and reminding him of bad memories, but also happening to be the only thing between him, Sakura, and those other people, and death.

Images flashed amongst the recesses of his mind (_mother father forgive me itachi-nii no_) but at the forefront spun images of orange, yellow, and red. Naruto spun and kicked and clawed his way through mercenaries with the ease of either one acting on instinct or one who has killed before and would not hesitate before doing it again. Sasuke dearly hoped it was the first, but the second deserved some contemplation before he had to throw it away.

He was the one who saw it. Maybe not actively saw and understood and processed what he saw, but he did see the man who would become his friend's killer lay down. He did see the movement coming, a taste of the precognitive abilities of the later levels of the Sharingan.

He did see Naruto's, his best friend's, throat get slashed. He did see the chakra bleed out of him in death, and he did feel his eyes shift.

He had been able to see before he had gotten in the dome. Uchiha eyesight was more likely to be perfect or ideal, and he met that standard. His vision became clearer, more resolute, and he had been able to see chakra trails as Haku flitted through the mirrors as a hummingbird's wings, and been able to make use of those eyes to deflect more senbon than he had been able to.

The difference between the Sharingan and whatever he was experiencing as a byproduct of Naruto's death was as much a difference between light and day. He thought he had been able to see previously, yet now here he was, _seeing _for the first time. His eyes saw all, from the dripping of the blood from the wound that had caused the merc's death to the shocked expression of Kakashi's sole eye as his student went down. This also means, however, that he saw more than what everyone else saw on that bridge.

When Naruto arose, when he began thrashing about and trying to speak or roar or emit sound, he did not see Naruto. He saw _red,_ he saw _anger, _ he saw more hate than even he had experienced. He saw, in its purest of essences, the Kyuubi, as it was once seen: as the physical embodiment of anger, hate, rage, and passion given chakra and power. He witnessed the color red, and was afraid.

He watched the red recede, yet now that he knew what resided within his teammate, how could he treat him as the _dead-last_? The very idea was absurd. Naruto was a monster, an embodiment of hate bound within a human body.

Somewhere within his body, he felt the drain of his eyes finally take its toll, and red-on-black faded to black orbs on white sclera. His vision, too, faded from crystal-clear precognition to normal, perfect sight, to blackness as exhaustion once more took him. Dimly, he was aware of hustle and bustle around him as the villagers sprang to action, but he was just so...tired.

~.~.~

Sasuke was asleep in her lap. Naruto was asleep? Dead? Unknown. On the bridge, having given her and Sasuke the most hurt look she had ever seen. Kakashi was MIA? Collapsed? She'd have to check. What should she do?

Nothing in the Academy could have prepared her for this.

_Hey, Outer me. I've got an idea. _What? Who wa—oh, Inner. What is it?

_Get Inari. Tell him to help you carry them all back to the house so you and Tsunami-san can treat them. You've got a good head, Outer. Use it, don't lose it._ Right. Good idea.

"Inari! Come here!" The prepubescent boy walked over to her, confused and scared.

"Have the villagers help me carry these back to the house, okay? That way your mom and I can treat Naruto and Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei. Tell them to carry them on stretchers, or, lacking that, in their arms like they would babies. Can you do that?"

Inari nodded, and Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay then, go on."

Inari scurried away, to tell the villagers what to do. Carefully, as to not wake up the sleeping Uchiha, she turned and got her lap back from under him. Then, slowly, she put him on her back, and began walking.

_Ugh, Outer, we aren't strong enough to handle him. You'd think he'd weigh less, but noo, he just has to way like 100 pounds. _Shut up, Inner. _Wasn't there a way to augment our muscles? Like, with chakra or somethin'? _Hmm. Good point. I'll try it in my legs, like I would the tree-walking exercise.

She applied chakra, not to her feet, but to her calves, and suddenly she found walking a lot easier. She tried running, only to fall after jumping over a couple of buildings and a tree. She landed on her face, Sasuke still topping her, and both her and Inner Sakura blushed. _No time for that, now. _Sakura soldiered on, and made it to the house before the procession of villagers that would follow her showed up. By the time she got to the house, she was almost out of chakra.

Entering through the front door and ignoring the traditional shoe-removal that would usually come after that event, she carried Sasuke up to the room him and the other two members of Team 7 shared. After dropping him off on the bed, she retrieved her medkit from her backpack and began to cleanse and bandage his wounds.

When she was finished, she went down to explain to Tsunami what had happened at the bridge, right as the rest of the procession came. Sighing, she directed the people carrying Naruto and Kakashi to their room, ushered them out, and did the same to Kakashi first then Naruto.

Wait. Naruto needed no bandages, she noticed. All the wounds she had noticed earlier; senbon holes, _a slit throat_, weren't there. The only trace of them having existed was in his blood-soaked clothing she had thrown to the side. She stared at him in consternation.

_There's something fishy here, _both her and Inner thought in union. And she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

* * *

And that is the end! Thank you for the 4 reviews and 200 views and 13 favorites and 17 follows! It was very motivating knowing I had so many people to impress, which is probably what ended up helping me reach word limit and deadline!

Now, about the chapter. I did this deliberately. First, I had Naruto's segment, which focused on thoughts and feeling and emotion, which is the kind of person he is. Next, I had Sasuke's segment, which focused on introspection and suspicion and perception. Also, he had no way of knowing that what he had achieved was indeed called Mangekyo Sharingan, seeing as he has yet to visit the Naka shrine in the Uchiha district with his Sharingan activated, so that's why I refrained from mentioning it in his POV. Finally, I had Sakura's POV, and she was tougher. She needed a kick in the rear, to man up and face responsibility, and I had Inner Sakura be that voice of motivation for her, and while her devotion to Sasuke is still there, you can see I've toned it down from how most fics portray it. I believe Sakura to be a very levelheaded, intelligent, passionate girl with no mind for cold calculation (like Sasuke) or prediction (like Shika) but instead with applied knowledge. My basis for the Academy's program includes a basic field medic class for all people, and while it was all theoretic, it was exactly what Sakura does best—and it shows, here. Inner Sakura is just a more obvious way of bringing it to the front of her mind, is all.

Thanks for reading, and may you have a great day!


	3. Reflections

pre-A/N: It's 2:34 AM and I don't have a Beta so I'm apologizing prematurely for any instances of characters acting out of character and misc. spelling/grammar mistakes. As always, read and review, and enjoy!

Oh yeah, Naruto's going to be writing in this chapter. In case you ignore the ", he wrote" parts of the narrative, Naruto's dialogue will be mostly in either brackets [] or braces {}, I haven't decided yet.

**Chapter 3: Reflection**

A week with at least two people asleep is incredibly worrying for the ones that are awake.

Sakura learned that firsthand on this mission. Sasuke had never had chakra exhaustion coupled with physical wounds in the form of senbon punctures. Naruto, while his chakra stores were full and all his visible wounds were healed, just _slept._ There was something deeply unsettling, thought Sakura, about seeing Naruto one second as a monster who tore his enemies apart and another second as this innocent, teenage, sleeping boy.

Kakashi was up after 3 days, just as he had been after the first fight with Zabuza. On the fourth, he was awake and taking care of the boys (as his teammates had once taken care of him) while Sakura guarded Tazuna. His reasons for letting her tend to Tazuna instead of her teammates was twofold: one, Tazuna duty was immensely less stressful then tending to people, and would allow her to rest; and two, Naruto and he would have to have a long chat when he woke up, and Sakura couldn't be around to hear it (on that matter, neither could Sasuke, but if what he suspected was correct, he might have to be).

On the fifth, Sasuke had been able to open his eyes, but was not coherent enough to form sentences. He began awakening bits at a time, and by the sixth day, he was able to walk and talk.

On the sixth day, Kakashi interrogated Sasuke as to what he saw almost a week prior, and Sasuke related it in full detail, almost as if he was in shock still.

"Sensei, I saw...something." Here he hesitated for a while, mustering his strength to remember. Kakashi remained silent. "It was...it felt like hate, it looked like hate and anger and it, I, we, were scared, Sakura and I were. Before I could see it in detail, something happened to my eyes and then I could see it and it looked like pure emotion and it was red and Sensei, it had a fox's head, and _just what in the fucking hell was it!?_" By then, Sasuke, panicking, had begun to yell.

Kakashi grimaced, and then, against all his Shinobi instincts, embraced the trembling young man. Sasuke did not return it, but calmed down. Once Sasuke had calmed down enough to resume talking (rather quickly, Kakashi though, for someone his age), Kakashi simply told him this: "That is Naruto's decision to tell, though I will be pressuring him to tell you. You deserve to know, and he needs to know to trust his team. Do not hate Naruto for it, okay?" His eye gave off an image of joy, and yet, through the fabric of his masks, he was frowning.

Sasuke frowned, finding the whole situation suspicious. He kept to himself for the rest of the day, not training, merely thinking on what happened at the bridge, dwelling upon it, and reviewing it to the best of his memory.

It was not until later that day that Kakashi remembered that he had to talk to Sasuke about his new eyes.

* * *

On the seventh day, the bridge was completed. All the blood from the Gato Massacre (as the citizens of Wave called it) had been washed away, and the various chips and dents and other such battle wounds on the bridge had been repaired. The citizens of Wave rejoiced for that reason, and the town was in high spirits.

On the seventh day, Naruto woke up. Coughing and frantic, he sat up wildly, and fell off the bed. Hearing this, both Sasuke and Kakashi dashed up the stairs, Sakura trailing behind. When they got to the room, they all began laughing, as Naruto had gotten caught up in his own blankets and seemed stuck.

Naruto grinned, and opened his mouth to utter a "good morning!" or something of the sort, but nothing came out. He tried again. And again. His teammates stopped laughing.

He started coughing instead. Kakashi ordered him to stop trying to speak, and bent down by the panicked boy. Activating a quick diagnostic technique, he surveyed the area around Naruto's throat. What he found was shocking; he found nothing wrong. Chakra was circulating correctly, the windpipes and trachea were intact, and the veins and arteries up and down the neck were connected correctly.

Naruto nearly tried asking what was wrong with him, but was shot down as he opened his mouth by Sakura and Kakashi. Frowning, Kakashi ordered the other two members of Team 7 away, so he could debrief Naruto in peace.

He slid Naruto a notepad. "Write," he suggested. "Tell me what happened on the bridge."

[Kakashi-sensei, I'm hungry. Can't we do this later?] he wrote.

"No. We need to do this now. While you get dressed after we're done, I'll ask our kind host Tsunami to make you some food. Now tell me what happened after I collapsed."

[You collapsed? Wait, what happened exactly? Did we win? Is Tazuna still alive?] He wrote quickly and excitedly, pushing the pad towards Kakashi impatiently.

"Yes, Naruto, I collapsed. From chakra exhaustion. After you helped me kill a good chunk of Gato's mercenaries. You beat the ice maiden and then helped me kill them. We won. Tazuna's still alive, the bridge is complete, our mission is mostly over." Kakashi sighed.

[I beat Haku? As in...] Here he paused for several seconds, an expression of thought on his face. [He's still alive though, right? I didn't...] Again, he paused, this time with a look of horror on his face.

[I killed Haku, didn't I? Drove a kunai through his skull?]

Kakashi answered, "Evidently."

[Oh. And then..something happened? I blacked out or something, because all I remember now is killing Haku and then something happening and then here we are.]

They both knew he was lying. In reality, Naruto remembered. He remembered the faces of some of the people he had butchered, he remembered the screams as they went down, covered in their own blood.

[When did I pass out?] he scribbled next.

"Apparently, your tenant got out after your throat got slashed by a merc that was playing dead. After scaring the population of Wave and your teammates, you collapsed and you've been out ever since. That's probably why you don't remember anything."

There was a lull in conversation for a while, until Naruto began writing again.

[Is that all?] he asked.

"I suppose so. Oh, wait, one last thing." Kakashi cringed at what he was about to say and do next. "You...did well. I'm proud of you." Ruffling his student's hair, he got up and walked out of the room.

A few seconds later, as Naruto was getting dressed, he popped back in. "Oh, and you're going to have to tell Sasuke about your tenant possibly. Good luck!" And with that, he was out again.

Naruto blinked. That was random.

* * *

post-story A/N: Thanks for all the views and follows and favorites guys! I only got one more review (thank you darkhuntressxir, and your question will be answered shortly), which was saddening, but my views _tripled _from 200 to 620, this story got 7 more favorites, and the follows doubled plus some, to 29! All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with the amount of attention this story is drawing, and I can't wait to get them back to Konoha so I can start with some serious character development! That said, this chapter is pretty lackluster, and it's my least favorite of all to have written, so I hope you don't mind this being as shitty as it is! I have a lot more enthusiasm for the next chapter, so don't quit it yet, okay?

Just a note about scheduling: This fic runs on weekly updates, and this might shift to bimonthly updates when school kicks back in (August 7 for me). Most of the week, though, I spend either a) outlining the newest chapter on my writing blog, kyousuibyou on tumblr; or b) not thinking about it until Thursday and then writing a hurried outline then remembering at midnight on Saturday that I need to write the chapter so I pull up the hurried outline and write it according to that. Chapter 2 was of the first sort, and this one is of the second, IF YOU COULDN'T TELL.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT TO READ THEM

What I plan on doing after the Wave arc is spend a bit of Naruto/Iruka time, so they can help Naruto work on his handwriting. After that's over, I plan on having some serious teamwork exercises to compensate for Naruto's lack of communicative abilities, including but not limited to Passing the Rock and ANBU/Jounin-level handsigns for discreet communications. Sasuke will receive the Curse Mark, Naruto will be more competent and will still receive the Gogyo Fuin (I need to Google the English name for that so I can use it), and most of the Forest of Death stuff will remain the same. Ooh, I have an idea for a plot twist...gotta keep that one in mind. Let me just tell you right now: Sasuke will not be defecting in this fic. I like him too much for him to go to Orochimaru.

Anyways, as always, have a good day, and thanks for reading!


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